


to divine purpose

by essektheylyss (midnightindigo)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24051025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss
Summary: Essek has never found any use for belief. Now it seems that belief has no use for him.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 3
Kudos: 94





	to divine purpose

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt fill for an anon on Tumblr, who asked for "You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and yet I don’t regret a moment of it.” Am I just planning on working my way through Essek deep talks with each member of the m9? You bet I am.
> 
> Also, I might just be desperately missing Caduceus advice. Planning to lobby Marisha Ray for an hourlong quarantine show of Taliesin in character dispensing soothing life wisdom.

The issue, of course, with sleeping in the dome, tucked among the rest of his friends, is that Essek does not sleep.

He trances, of course, he has to rest, but he is always cognizant of his differences from the people around him, and late into the evening his mind wanders from the books he reads while on watch and toward the knowledge that he will outlive everyone in this dome. 

Watching them sleep so peacefully, seeming almost dead already, it is hard to forget.

He often finds himself on watch, too, nearly every night unless he is truly exhausted—it would be silly for him not to take a watch for the half of the night that he is perfectly awake, when the others need to recover from whatever chaos they have found themselves in today.

Tonight he is on watch with Caduceus, and the dark is all-encompassing beyond their dome in the Greying Wildlands, and though it is warm here, with the magic still pulsing even as Caleb sleeps, there is a layer of snow on the ground still, though it is well into spring by now. 

Caduceus seems content to sip his tea, sitting almost meditative with his ankles crossed, sitting pleasantly upright though he is utterly relaxed. The firbolg frequently takes watch, and Essek finds himself watching him, seeking to find some kind of calm himself in the study of it. He has spent the time he has traveled with him looking over his shoulder, waiting even now for the knife in his back.

Beau tells him all the time that he’s going to break his neck from the nervous tic, but he can’t bring himself to let his guard down, not even here when he knows this dome will protect him—knows that Caleb protects them every night.

Still, it’s hard. He’s made plenty of enemies, as have his friends. He feels justified in watching out for them by watching out for himself.

And for the first time ever, really, he has very little in the way of complications with which to distract himself. They have plenty to do on their travels, but he is not consumed with the web of his connections and lies that have kept him occupied for so long, and it turns out that that was eating up far more of his time than he’d like to admit. 

“What are you thinking about, tonight?”

The low voice stirs him out of whatever reverie he’d been caught in. He feels so aimless, the book in his hand a plaything rather than a tool, and he sighs as he sets it aside. 

It feels like he has been unmade, in the time he has joined them. He doesn’t know who he is, in this life, aside from an accessory to the Mighty Nein. 

He also cannot bring himself to desire any other circumstance, anymore. He only wishes that he could find more purpose, feel as though he can spend his evenings in any other state but introspection, in which he finds himself lost more often than not.

Any hope of getting reading done aside, he shuffles to sit beside Caduceus, who offers him a cup of tea.

It warms his hands, and though he wasn’t particularly cold, the white endless landscape in front of him doesn’t look so cold when he’s holding it.

“Thank you.” He sips it before he answers. “I don’t always know what I’m… doing, here. With you all.”

“We all feel like that.”

“I understand, but…” he doesn’t know how to find the words, or maybe the words are stuck in his throat. Even now, he finds it so hard to say things, knowing that once the words are spoken, they are no longer his alone. No longer under his control. “I do not feel like one of you.”

“Ah,” Caduceus hums, and sets his tea down. “I joined this group later than the rest of them too. And it was… quite an adjustment. I had never left my home before. I’d also,” he chuckles, “only ever put people in the ground, not pushed them to get there.”

Essek blinks against the soft humor in Caduceus’ discussion of death and killing. Even he has to puzzle over the words for a moment to understand what Caduceus had actually meant, but when the words settle, he nods. 

“It was an adjustment, is all I’m saying. I mean, Veth killed me once. On accident, and Jester fixed me right up. But… I’ve done a lot of growing since we left. Lot more than these lands are doing right now. Maybe you’re still stuck under the snow, waiting for spring to finally come.”

Essek follows his gaze where the white of the ground and the black of the sky fade together in a soft grey, rather than meet at any clear horizon. Whether it is Caduceus’ faith-laced reassurance, or the night’s resemblance to the luxon, he allows himself a brief moment to wish for divine purpose. 

It’s such an odd realization, how much his purpose has always been laid out before him. No wonder he’s never had any use for belief.

Now, it feels like belief doesn’t have a use for him.

“Do you remember death at all?” he wonders, and then thinks maybe he shouldn’t have asked, but the words are out of his mouth, so he continues. “What was it like?”

“Ah,” Caduceus smiles. “I don’t think I got far enough to know, really. The Wildmother carried me, though, both ways.”

No, divine purpose is not something he has ever wished for, but looking at the serene smile on Caduceus’ face, he thinks it would be nice to have, if only for the reassurance that he was doing _something_.

“You’re looking for a use,” Caduceus continues, steering them back to the original question before Essek can fall down a rabbit hole of morbid contemplation. “And you have one, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Caleb can take care of a lot of what you have to offer, and it might feel like there’s no place for you in that. But I don’t think that’s true.”

Essek sighs. “I don’t know. It seems like I need you all a lot more than you need me.”

Ah. That was not a confession he had particularly planned to make tonight. 

Caduceus hums again, content that he’s gotten to the crux of the issue, and the words are already out, so Essek continues.

“I think… you are all the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. This… this remorse—it feels as though it will drag me into the earth. I didn’t have that, before you all. I could’ve survived in Rosohna without it, but now… I cannot return, because I know that this will ruin me now.” He looks up at the firbolg, his tea cooling, but now that he is on the path toward answers, he needs to follow it to its end. “How is it that I don’t regret having met you?”

“Because no one actually regrets being saved,” Caduceus says, and pats him warmly on the shoulder. “They only regret getting to the point where it was needed.”

Essek presses the cup to his chest. It is still warmer than his heart, but perhaps he is clawing his way from the soil like a seed, praying for the thaw. 

“Spring always comes eventually,” Caduceus says softly, then finishes his own tea and sets the cup down among his things. “I think it’s time I wake Jester for her watch.”

He stands, his head nearly the height of the dome, and Essek feels very small, sitting below him.

“Thank you, Caduceus,” he says gently, not even loud enough that he’s certain Caduceus will hear, but he smiles down at him regardless.

**Author's Note:**

> Essek as light cleric to Sarenrae WHEN. (Eventually, I will write that. I'll absolutely do it.) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading, and let me know what you thought!


End file.
